2013 Award Winner

Maryann P. Feldman

For her contributions to the study of the geography of innovation and the role of entrepreneurial activity in the formation of regional industry clusters.

Motivation

Maryann Feldman is well-known for her contributions to the study of the geography of innovation. Within that domain, a central focus of her work is on the role of entrepreneurial activity in the formation of regional industry clusters. She has studied entrepreneurial events involving both individuals and teams and the role of knowledge spillovers and finance in geographical clustering. In addition, she has addressed other important aspects of contemporary entrepreneurship research, such as academic entrepreneurs and university-industry relations, intellectual property rights, and high technology entrepreneurship–in particular, in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries as well as pertaining to the Internet and optical science.

The most significant impact of Maryann Feldman’s scientific output lies in research on firm location, inter-firm knowledge spillovers, and clusters/regional development. Many of her publications in this field address macro aspects of industry evolution, micro-level aspects of firm strategy and organization, as well as meso-level aspects of institutions, infrastructures, and policy.

Several of Maryann Feldman’s publications examine individuals and teams (especially the strategy and organization of new entrants), analyzing how a cluster’s supporting infrastructure may emerge when pioneering individual entrepreneurs adapt to crisis.

Feldman has studied how academic entrepreneurship is influenced by intellectual property rights and modes of finance, and examined how high technology entrepreneurship aligns with public policy and the geography of innovation.

Thus, Maryann Feldman’s work spans a broad area of entrepreneurship research. It is also of high quality, encompassing an impressive output of conceptually sound, empirically thorough, and technically sophisticated papers in highly ranked journals, enjoying a high citation impact. Her work has also had significant policy impact. She has testified before the United States Congress on issues related to innovation and entrepreneurship and consulted with local governments and entrepreneurial organizations on strategy. She is currently working with the US Department of Commerce on regional economic development issues.